Every one knows that the sight of cats or rats, the crushing of
a coal, etc., may unhinge the reason. The tone of voice affects the
wisest, and changes the force of a discourse or a poem.

    Love or hate alters the aspect of justice. How much greater
confidence has an advocate, retained with a large fee, in the
justice of his cause! How much better does his bold manner make his
case appear to the judges, deceived as they are by appearances! How
ludicrous is reason, blown with a breath in every direction!

    I should have to enumerate almost every action of men who scarce
waver save under her assaults. For reason has been obliged to yield,
and the wisest reason takes as her own principles those which the
imagination of man has everywhere rashly introduced. He who would
follow reason only would be deemed foolish by the generality of men.
We must judge by the opinion of the majority of mankind. Because it
has pleased them, we must work all day for pleasures seen to be
imaginary; and, after sleep has refreshed our tired reason, we must
forthwith start up and rush after phantoms, and suffer the impressions
of this mistress of the world. This is one of the sources of error,
but it is not the only one.

    Our magistrates have known well this mystery. Their red robes, the
ermine in which they wrap themselves like furry cats, the courts in
which they administer justice, the fleurs-de-lis, and all such
august apparel were necessary; if the physicians had not their
cassocks and their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and
their robes four times too wide, they would never have duped the
world, which cannot resist so original an appearance. If magistrates
had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing,
they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these
sciences would of itself be venerable enough. But having only
imaginary knowledge, they must employ those silly tools that strike
the imagination with which they have to deal; and thereby, in fact,
they inspire respect. Soldiers alone are not disguised in this manner,
because indeed their part is the most essential; they establish
themselves by force, the others by show.

    Therefore our kings seek out no disguises. They do not mask
themselves in extraordinary costumes to appear such; but they are
accompanied by guards and halberdiers. Those armed and red-faced
puppets who have hands and power for them alone, those trumpets and
drums which go before them, and those legions round about them, make
the stoutest tremble. They have not dress only, they have might. A
very refined reason is required to regard as an ordinary man the Grand
Turk, in his superb seraglio, surrounded by forty thousand
janissaries.

    We cannot even see an advocate in his robe and with his cap on his
head, without a favourable opinion of his ability. The imagination
disposes of everything; it makes beauty, justice, and happiness, which
is everything in the world. I should much like to see an Italian work,
of which I only know the title, which alone is worth many books, Della
opinione regina del mondo. I approve of the book without knowing it,
save the evil in it, if any. These are pretty much the effects of that
deceptive faculty, which seems to have been expressly given us to lead
us into necessary error. We have, however, many other sources of
error.

    Not only are old impressions capable of misleading us; the
charms of novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the disputes of
men, who taunt each other either with following the false
impressions of childhood or with running rashly after the new. Who
keeps the due mean? Let him appear and prove it. There is no
principle, however natural to us from infancy, which may not be made
to pass for a false impression either of education or of sense.

    "Because," say some, "you have believed from childhood that a
box was empty when you saw nothing in it, you have believed in the
possibility of a vacuum. This is an illusion of your senses,
strengthened by custom, which science must correct." "Because," say
others, "you have been taught at school that there is no vacuum, you
have perverted your common sense which clearly comprehended it, and
you must correct this by returning to your first state." Which has
deceived you, your senses or your education?

    We have another source of error in diseases. They spoil the
judgement and the senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible
change, I do not doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate
impression.

    Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely
putting out our eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to
be judge in his own cause; I know some who, in order not to fall
into this self-love, have been perfectly unjust out of opposition. The
sure way of losing a just cause has been to get it recommended to
these men by their near relatives.

    Justice and truth are two such subtle points that our tools are
too blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they
either crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the
true.

    Man is so happily formed that he has no... good of the true, and
several excellent of the false. Let us now see how much... But the
most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses
and reason.

    83. We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers. Man is